With regard to an organic high polymer material having an electron conductivity, the applications thereof for batteries and various functional devices have recently been investigated. For example, polyaniline as described in JP-A-2-638 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), polypyrrole as described in JP-A-62-226568, polyacene as described in JP-A-63-301465, etc., has been regarded as hopeful electron conductive high polymers. These electron conductive high polymers can be produced by an electrolytic polymerization method or a chemical oxidation polymerization method.
However, the electrolytic polymerization method has problems on the mass producing property and the cost in the points that (1) the producing amount is restricted by the size of an electrode, (2) a step of separating the polymerized product from the electrode is required, etc.
Also, the capacity of a battery in the case of using polyaniline or polypyrrole as the electrode of the battery was low as 5.6 wh/kg for polyaniline and 8.2 wh/kg for polypyrrole [Kagaku to Kogyo (Chemistry and Industry), Vol. 42, No. 9, p. 1560 (1989)].
In regard to this point, it has been investigated to improve the capacity by carrying out the electrolytic polymerization of polypyrrole through a nitrile-butadiene rubber and thereafter cleaning the nitrile-butadiene rubber to thereby increase the utilizable active points in the polypyrrole film [Oosaka et al, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol. 134, p. 2479 (1987)] but such a polypyrrole film is unsuitable for practical use in the points of the producibility and the cost since the production method thereof is an electrolytic polymerization.
Also, when the product obtained by electrolytically polymerizing a pyrrole having a 3,6,9-trioxadecyl group at the N-position was used as the electrode for a battery in the system of using a high polymer solid electrolyte of polyethylene oxide, the capacity thereof was from twice to 30 times that in the case of using an unsubstituted polypyrrole but such a product was inferior in the repeating characteristics [M. G. Menet et al, Synthetic Metals, Vol. 28, p. C 211 (1989)].